Tornado in my city

While I was in Duluth shooting a wedding yesterday, I got into my car after the ceremony, I saw that I had 3 text messages and 2 voicemail. I checked the texts first and they all said,
"Are you guys ok?"
"Text me back-- want to make sure you guys are ok!" and my friend Nimmy wrote,
"Are you guys ok? Crazy weather!"
I checked my voicemail, and Aaron left me a voicemail saying that there had been a tornado, but everything at home is ok. He said he was sitting at the kitchen table when the wind REALLY picked up. He went to go shut the window and he heard a huge crack and he watched the top half of a neighbor's tree fall off. Just after that, the sirens went off, and he ran downstairs. I am actually very thankful that he saw the tree fall, because otherwise he may have just thought it was a windy storm.
(I took a photo out the window this AM of the tree... You can see the tree on the ground, and the tree it broke off of-- 20 feet from the ground):



Some of you may not have tornadoes in your area, so I'll explain that when the sirens go off here, it means that you need to get down to your basement because there is either a really bad storm about to happen, or it already is happening, including that there are perfect tornado conditions, or a tornado is spotted and may already even be on the ground... so you don't know how much time you have if a tornado were to hit your house.

There was either a very damaging storm or a tornado in my city(They're deciding today, I guess. I'm guessing it matters for insurance reasons?)-- there were many sitings of funnel clouds that were called in (perhaps people saw the same cloud?). My city isn't very large, so it was really too close for comfort. While there is no damage to our home, there was a lot of damage around the city. In Hugo and Blaine, neighboring cities, there were two more tornadoes. Hugo had the worst damage, and a 4-year old was killed, 1 child in critical condition, 8 people seriously injured, and 50 homes were destroyed. Please keep those families in your thoughts and prayers.


CLICK HERE to watch the clip from the news this AM. That was hardly any damage compared to what Hugo got (link below)...

CLICK HERE for the the article about the damage in Hugo. Make sure you look at the photo gallery... there are some incredible images that really show the devastating damage. Thank God there was only 1 death... Everyone else must have been in their basement. What a scary nightmare. There is this almost unreal photo...the roof and walls ripped off the top half of the house, and you can see inside the house-- the bathtub is still in place...


I've mentioned before that I am terrified of tornadoes, but that I am always taking photos of the sky if I think one is about to occur. God knows I would have been out there with my camera... I'm glad I was shooting a wedding instead, in much safer conditions.